In general, the present invention relates to a video-signal recording and playback apparatus, a video-signal recording and playback method and a recording medium. More particularly, the present invention relates to a video-signal recording and playback apparatus, a video-signal recording and playback method and a recording medium suitable for a case in which a recommended position to a start an operation to playback a video signal from a recording medium is provided to select representative pictures.
In order to allow the user to grasp the contents of a program recorded on a recording medium or the contents of a group of such programs, or in order to search such a recording medium for a program, there is provided a method whereby a plurality of shrunk static pictures or moving pictures each representing a program or a scene is displayed on a screen and the user is allowed to specify one of the displayed pictures in order to select a desired program or a desired scene of a program.
Traditionally, a set of pictures each representing a program or a scene comprises characteristic pictures automatically extracted and cataloged as candidates for representative pictures. However, the number of such representative pictures may be too large for use by the user to grasp the contents of a program of interest to the user or to specify a start position of a playback operation.
By the way, in determination of a representative picture by adoption of the method described above, the following problems are raised.
A plurality of representative pictures having almost the same contents may be inadvertently recorded. In addition, a number of representative pictures may be inadvertently recorded for a relatively short program.
As a result, in determination of a start position of a program, it is quite within the bounds of possibility that a search for a representative picture representing the start position cannot be carried out with a high degree of efficiency due to the fact that too many ineffective representative pictures must be searched.
In addition, if a thinning process of representative pictures is carried out at the end of a recording operation or in a playback operation instead of being carried out during the recording operation, the responsiveness to a recording and/or playback demand raised by the user deteriorates since it takes too long time to complete the playback operation due to the thinning process.